When you bite off more than you can chew!!
I just said quit after a very very long time. I am saddened. But there is no going back. Sometimes you take things more than you can handle. Is it wrong to go back if you think you are not capable enough of handling the thing at that time and returning to it later???
I have spent the last two days in absolute agony trying to make my mind and even putting last minute herculean efforts. But I think I started off with more than I could handle. I took the advanced DSP course and it was tough for me and I called it quits 5 minutes ago (unregistered for the exam) cause I did not put enough time before with other courses and last minute does not help if you have only beginner's skills. Still I can see a positive, it has made me learn Signals basics pretty well and also it has taught me the lesson to not to bite off more than I can chew. And since there was nobody online at this hour , I decided to blog to ease my pain. I wanted somebody close to talk too but they are all sleeping. I hate quitting on something. I do not know why. It makes me feel like I am not special. It makes me remember all the times I have left something in between. It hurts where it hurts most. I know I have enough credits for back home and this was only an attempt to test my limits. I do not know if this was good for me or bad for me, but I remember reading "if the mistake does not kill you , most probably something good will come out of it". After two days, I feel a heavy weight has been lifted from my head. Sadness can ease pain sometimes instead of complete denial. I have one more exam to give and studying for both of them was getting quite a thing.
Now I head back to the books , cause in order to make up for this, I need to perform well in the other. Best of luck to me.
The moment ......
Life is made up of moments. Moments of happiness which can turn into moments of sadness , moments of triumph which can turn into moments of failure , moments of solitude which can turn into moments of lonliness and moments in which life comes to rest.
I sometimes try to recall my childhood and what I can come up with are merely moments. What you remember about life is like a zero-hold sampled signal ( gosh i hate DSP), even though life itself is continous what you remember about it are discretely sampled points( incidents) which some how got registered into your memory. I have collected lot of these moments here during my stay.
I have had ups and downs during my stay, moments in which my senses have experienced heavenly bliss ( and I am not taking about drinking;-) ) and one of these ups have come recently when I realized that I am a pretty lucky person. I have been to Kiruna, a place in northern Sweden which is located above the arctic circle. Why did I want to go there when it was freezing -20 degrees. For the simple reason I am crazy. I wanted to see the
norrsken (aka aurora borealis). So all geared up with every body part covered up with atleast two layers of clothing I flew into Kiruna. It was cold but it was also very cool ;-). We were tired by the evening and were thinking of calling it quits for the day when we decided to venture out into the cold. I had not paid good money just to sit in a heated room. So out we went. It had been cloudy when we reached there and people we had met had not seen the norrsken even after staying there for 5 nights. But by 8 the clouds had disappeared and it was the most awesome view of the sky I have had for a long time. So out we walked, playing in the softest of snow checking out the sky from time to time. We took a tour of town, we were getting tired and thinking about heading back when one of us spotted something green in the sky. We had gotten lucky!!!. It was like a green dragon that was flying in the sky. It started out as faint on one end of sky and within a minute it had become dark green on the other like they were meant to be the dragon's flame. And then they were gone within 3 minutes of their starting. To be sure we even asked a local to confirm if those were the northern lights.
This made me think (sorry mr mithrandir could not help it), about moments. But what if we had decided to stay in?? Then we would have missed the moment and like most of the people leaving in the hotel would have said that they did not happen during their stay. Life is defined by some key moments and it is upto us to make our moments by our selves. If you do not decide which moment is right for you, life can just keep on going on continuously but then you would have nothing to remember it by cause you only remember the spikes not the monotonicity. What if I had not filled in the form for coming here on the last day? What would have my life turned out to be? While writing this one more question has arisen in my head, what if you realize later that you have missed a moment?? The moment stays with you but it can easily turn into one of those things you start to regret. Luckily or unluckily I can recall only one of these moments in my life where I have realized later that I missed the moment.
There was also one more thing, there were a group who stood in the cold for nearly 4 hours but did not get their sight cause they were looking from the place where the whole sky was not visible. Some times you have to change your position to get a better view. Sometimes just taking a step more is sufficient sometimes you have to move a lot. And sometimes you just get plain lucky!!!!!
Sometimes shoes do not fit!
Sometimes you get better at things with time and then you seem to enjoy them a lot more. I had this amazing feeling in my body when I could skate on ice with reasonable speed and grace ( considering it was my only third time doing it :-) ). But what I want to say started with my first experience at ice skating.
I wear a shoe of European size 40.5, so the first time I went I rented a size 41 (after trying 44,43,42.. it had become really embarassing) and so they did not fit so well. My balance was not perfect and 30 minutes into the experience, my feet were hurting like hell. But I remember enjoying it for the first 10 minutes or so before my feet started hurting really bad. So the next time I went (I have become addicted to it), I tried a size 40 and I improved quite a lot. But at the end of one hour, my feet were still hurting a little. I was pretty tired today so had decided not to go. But at the last moment, my friend called up and asked me not to be lazy and just come to the place. So today, when I went, I confidently asked for a size 40 skate. But to my astonishment, they would not fit. I kept on trying for 5-10 agonizing minutes before my friend suggested that I should go and get a different pair. Thankfully I listenened to him and went and got a different set ( size 40 again) and this time they were this snug fit like they were designed keeping my feet in mind. And it became a lot easier to skate today. It was amazing. And at the end of 1 hour 15 minutes I was still going strong, feet not hurting and fully energized with the result that my friends had to literally force me to leave the rink.
Ice Skating is like taking a long drive. Some how it seems to clear my mind and align my thoughts. And while I was skating, I thought, what we do for a living in life is also like picking a pair of ice skates. No matter how enjoyable and exhilarating it seems in the beginning, if it is not meant for you, it starts to hurt sooner or later. But once you find a pair that fits, the experience becomes more enjoyable and it gives you energy while you are at it instead of sucking energy out of you. Everybody has to try for himself/herself and get a feeling to find a pair that fits. But just wish making decisions in life was as simple as going to the counter and asking for another pair.
